BillGuard

Left to right: A representative from Alipay joins Tinna Hung, Director of Marketing for EyeVerify during a demonstration of Eyeprint ID at FinovateAsia 2016.

This month we’re highlighting the issue of security in fintech. Our first installment was our interview with ENVEIL CEO Ellison Anne Williams.

Today we use the lens of our Best of Show awards to take a look at companies innovating in the security space for financial services companies and institutions. Three security companies have won Best of Show awards in more than one conference. Biometric specialists EyeVerify and BehavioSec have both earned Best of Show trophies on three separate occasions. Interestingly, both companies won one of their Best of Show awards at FinovateAsia; BehavioSec in Singapore, EyeVerify in Hong Kong. (Speaking of FinovateAsia, remember that Finovate returns to the Far East November 7 & 8.)

Earning two Best of Show awards was Silver Tail Systems (now a part of RSA, the security division of EMC, which acquired the company in 2012). Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Menlo Park, company was a pioneer in leveraging real-time behavior analysis to spot and stop business logic abuse on financial institution websites.

EyeVerify, which was acquired by Ant Financial last fall, announced in August that it was rebranding as Zoloz. In a blog post at the company’s website, CEO Toby Rush said the new company would be focused on providing a hosted identity platform geared toward the Asian market. “Underserved and underbanked consumers in this region are moving to mobile so quickly that they have leapfrogged biometrics adoption and identity services in other geographies,” Rush wrote. “The platform is centered around the idea that I am me, my phone should just know me, and my apps and services should know me – automatically, conveniently, and securely,” he explained.

Zoloz is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, and was founded in 2012. The company most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateEurope 2017.

BehavioSec, the behavioral biometric innovator, forged a partnership with Gemalto earlier this summer, to provide end-user verification and identity solutions as FIs increasingly embrace digital technologies. “Removing bottlenecks to achieve full digitization of a business goes hand-in-hand with conquering online fraud, through a layered an collaborative approach,” Costigan said. In May, BehavioSec teamed up with fellow Finovate alum Kount, integrating its behavioral biometric technology with Kount’s fraud management platform. A partnership with Appdome this spring produced AppFusion for BehavioSec, a solution that makes it easier for app developers to add behavior-based biometric authentication to their mobile apps.

Based in Stockholm, Sweden, BehavioSec was founded in 2009. The three-time Best of Show winner most recently demonstrated its technology at FinovateFall 2015.

Making it on the Finovate stage as a security solutions provider is one challenge. Taking home a Best of Show trophy as a company dedicated to helping stop fraudulent transactions, prevent unauthorized access, and create truly “safe spaces” in a connected world is quite another. Here is the full list of security companies that have won Best of Show awards at Finovate conferences.

While the term PFM is dead, the concept, employing software to watch over your finances, is more widespread than ever. It’s just called AI, spending management, or nothing at all since it’s now baked into many digital banking offerings.

However, automated spending management is still not widely used by customers because the big players don’t make it available by default, except Wells Fargo’s My Spending Report. So there is still room for new companies in this arena, especially if they invoke AI in their value proposition. And it doesn’t hurt to have celebrity business connections either.

Enter Clarity Money into the crowded field. But with Michael Dell’s brother Adam as founder, and $3.5 million in funding from VC heavyweights Soros Fund, Maveron Partners and Bessemer Venture Capital, the mobile PFM startup has attracted a slew of press mentions (NY Times, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Bank Innovations, and a dozen more). But the biggest help to the fledgling business came a few weeks ago when Apple named it a “new app we love” that pushed the app from nowhere to #16 (USA app store, free Finance apps). Today it is number 56 (see above).

The mobile-only free service reminds us of BillGuard (acquired by Prosper) married to Moven, with a sprig of Mint on the side (see image posted to Clarity’s Instagram left). The value proposition is around monitoring transactions to save money on unneeded recurring services and/or bloated bills (in which the company takes a one-time commission on savings) while building a small nest egg in an integrated FDIC-insured savings account.

Bottom line: There’s much to learn from Clarity’s marketing messages, value proposition, and mobile-first build. If you don’t offer these benefits for customers, someone else will.

Consumer value prop

Save money on bills

Build a savings account

Don’t get ripped off by unauthorized or unneeded recurring charges

Keep your spending organizes

Business model

Consumer loan lead gen (e.g., a Chase credit card is shown on a screenshot)

BillGuard users will be automatically migrated to the new platform automatically upon updating the app. The core of the app, which helps users flag suspicious charges, check their credit score, and track spending, is the same (aside from the rebrand). Today’s update brings added 3D Touch capability that lets users view inbox count and monthly spend from their home screen. Also new is a loan overview for Prosper borrowers.*

While there’s no word yet on loan performance overview capability for Prosper lenders, the company hints at upcoming changes, stating, “In the near future, we’ll be strengthening the app’s core with smarter ways to keep track of your spending, helping you reach your money goals and improving the reliability of the updates from your accounts.”

Prior to today’s announcement, BillGuard offered three versions: freemium, BillGuard Pro, and BillGuard Ultimate. The company is paring down to two services by retiring its Pro service. All Pro users will be upgraded to Ultimate at no additional cost.

In the months ahead, we will be releasing our initial BillGuard-Prosper product integrations which will take BillGuard to a whole new level of financial control and well-being. We can’t wait to share it with you.

San Francisco-based BillGuard, which launched in 2011, has helped its 1.4 million users flag more than $70 million in unauthorized charges.

It’s a little bittersweet when two of my favorite fintech companies combine. I am happy for both, but will miss seeing what BillGuard could have done as a stand-alone financial transaction watchdog (see note 1). After raising $16.5 million, the $30 million in cash—plus undisclosed amount of Prosper stock (note 2)—should provide a decent payday for investors, founders and employees. Caveat: without knowing the liquidation preferences of later investors, or the stock piece, we don’t really know how all the stakeholders fared.

From the sounds of it, though, it’s no acqui-hire. BillGuard said it’s tripling its dev team to 75 and will be heading full-speed-ahead on its product roadmap. That sounds good for BillGuard.

The more difficult question is why Prosper is spending 20% of the $165 million it raised in April on an ancillary service? The company says it is looking to move into broader financial management. And with 1 million visitors per month—the vast majority of which are likely to be unqualified for a Prosper loan—marketing PFM and credit-monitoring services have some appeal. But it seems like it could be a distraction (note 3).

But at least from the outside, I’m not seeing BillGuard as a significant value-add at this point. Even if Prosper were to convert 1% of its 1-million/mo traffic (optimistic) into BillGuard’s $5 to $10/mo credit-monitoring services with a margin of 50%, that would only add $75,000/month to the bottom line or about $900,000 in the first year—assuming 50/50 mix at the two price levels. Depending on attrition rates, that would grow over time, but it’s still not a great return on $30+ million. And if Prosper is looking to mine BillGuard’s 1.7 million customers for new loans, the lender could have done it much cheaper via partnership.

Peter Renton, writing at LendAcademy, has the best justification for the deal I’ve seen. Prosper needs something to stay engaged with loan customers—and presumably denied loan customers—since there is little reason for them to log back in once the loan has been made and automatic payments established.

All those reasons are part of the valuation. But my guess is that Prosper has something grander cooking, and BillGuard is just a piece of that puzzle. Perhaps they seek to take on Credit Karma in the broader credit-reporting/lead-gen space. I look forward to more news down the road.

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Notes:

1: Chris Larsen showcased Prosper at our initial multi-unicorn-producing Finovate in NYC in 2007, winning our very first Best of Show trophy (along with Mint and MortgageBot).
BillGuard was named Best of Show at its two Finovate appearances, 2011 and 2012.

2: The terms of the deal were not disclosed in the official announcement. VentureBeat appears to be the widely cited source of the “$30 million plus stock” terms.

3: I bet Prosper’s FI investors—BBVA, Suntrust, Chase, USAA—like the deal. They not only have an inside peek at BillGuard’s metrics, but also a ringside seat to see how a lending specialist can or cannot expand into broader banking/PFM services.

“More transactions taking place online mean more opportunities to help consumers manage their money in digital form: enter the fintech platforms,” wrote Joel Watson for Hot Topics. “Whether it be securing mortgagees, getting a loan, transferring money abroad, spending money in an ecommerce store, or one of a thousand other applications, the marketplace is fiercely competitive and growing all the time.”

See if you agree with who made the cut, who was overlooked, and who deserves at least an honorable mention.